by: Bibi Harmeet Kaur Dhillon
This paper was presented by the author at a seminar “Young Sikhs in America and Success” at the annual meeting of the Association of Sikh Professionals held on April 45,1992 in Washington, DC. The thoughts that follow are on the topic of identifying strategies whereby young Sikhs can succeed in America as Sikhs, and how the older generations can further that end.
If we are willing to discard or down play our identities as Sikhs, as socially, culturally, and spiritually distinct from the mainstream of America society, then some of the problems are answered right away we just try to blend in as much as possible, adopt American names, put the process of assimilation on a fast track, and leave our childhoods behind as quaint footnotes to the great American story of immigrants who succeeded by absorbing wholesale the culture and personality of their adopted Jand.
I suspect, however, that that is not what most of us want, or we wouldn’t be discussing how to succeed as Sikhs. Most of us want to retain some degree of identity as Sikhs, weather that retains spiritually, culturally, socially, or politically. This is a challenging, often daunting, and occasionally frustrating task. We face a benign and seductive enemy: the eroding effects of time and distance, that like the ocean lapping against a rocky cliff over the years wears away the stone into sand, insubstantial, that slips through ones fingers and scatters in the wind. Our chances of success in fighting the enemy of complacent mediocrity, of falling back toward the mean rather than achieving the apex of sociocultural, spiritual, and economic success, depend in great part on how we define the problem, from which follows the question of how to structure the solution.
Tam always struck by how different generations approach problems differently. I want to share with you an experience had with my family recently after my parents and! Went to see the movie “Mississippi masalla. I think my family’s different reactions to this issue can be analogized to the different perspectives we take towards the goal of succeeding as Sikhs in America.
In the movie, the main character Mina is a young woman of 24, of Indian heritage but an immigrant to Mississippi from Uganda’s Indian community. Her mother operates a liquor store in the small town where they live; her father, an Attomey by training, helps to run a ramshackle motel owned by a young relative. Mina, who cleans the bathrooms for the hotel and did not go to college, falls in love with a black carpet cleaning entrepreneur, causing much heartbreak to her family and scandalous gossip among the local Patel community, who are shocked but secretly delighted to find that the dark-skinned Mina, who had the opportunity to date the most eligible local Patel bachelor, would choose to run off with a black carpet cleaner instead.
What, if anything, went wrong with Mina, and what could have prevented it? According to my mother, the problem was lack of education and low class: “What do you expect from a girl who cleans toilets?” said Mom. “She didn’t know any better, hadn’t been educated, was stuck in that small town, didn’t have any career opportunities, hung out with the wrong element, and look what happened. Of course she was going to fool around with that black guy.”
My father had a different perspective: the problem was society, and his response was fatalistic resignation. *’ You’re missing the point,” he told my mother. “Of course this is going to happen sooner or later because our generation doesn’t understand how to integrate successfully with American society. By trying to keep totally separate from American culture all we do is invite resentment from whites and blacks, and end up not knowing what our kids are facing and being unable to communicate with them, Furthermore, society’s racism pressures our children to assimilate and abandon their culture because they are ashamed of us. We will have to learn to change and adapt ourselves to American culture; I had yet a third analysis. “The problem is not lack of education, or American society’s racism. The problem is lack of realistic alternatives, Look at the goofy, socially inept Indian guys Mina had to choose from in her town, and her lack of familiarity with her own culture, The problem is that while many in my generation would like very much to maintain our Indian heritage, this is very difficult without concrete assistance from your generation, without some flexibility and understanding, without your making efforts to find out about this society and what it takes to get ahead here. “If you insist that we maintain the same lifestyles as you have and don’t provide us with some realistic alternatives and tools to succeed both as Sikhs and as Americans, then many will choose by attrition to adopt the path of least resistance and simply merge into American society, like Mina did. Give us some help, and some real choices, and we can have a chance to maintain our identities.” In retrospect, I think each of us had a point. My mother was absolutely correct that a lack of education and career opportunities will inevitably pressure any person to settle for living in a lower socio economic stratum than she might otherwise achieve. My father was perceptive in his observation that self-enforced separatism is counterproductive, and that the subtle persistence of racism in the broader society is a stumbling block that we can only overcome through self-help and persistent effort.
And I think I was accurate in asserting that we can succeed in maintaining our identity with some concrete help, moral guidance, financial support, and spiritual dedication from our elders. But our expectations must be realistic, and the resources to support them adequate or we will only end up compounding the frustration and alienation incipient and growing in my generation. It may help to break up the problem into several discrete areas we need to focus upon.
The need for Sikh youth to obtain higher education is self-evident. Education is perhaps the single most important factor in career success. As minorities, and especially as religious minorities who stand out and thus invite critical scrutiny, we need to be far beer qualified than average just to ensure that we will get an even chance at the job opportunities we seek, Sikh parents have traditionally been very supportive of the educational needs and goals of their children, and as a result Sikh children have tended to excel academically.
There are problems, however, on the educational front. One of these is an unduly narrow focus on certain professions, such as medicine or engineering. Parents are often guilty of forcing their children into these careers because of an outdated perception that these are the only respectable and remunerative professions realistically open to them. This perception is, of course, no longer accurate, There are many respectable, well-paying professions and careers open to Sikhs in this country, including business, Jaw, journalism, art, public service, and teaching. So one thing we need from our elders is understanding and flexibility, and the permission, with their guidance, of course, to choose the educational path that will best suit the intellectual interests and career goals of each individual.
Another problem in education for our youth is an overemphasis on book learning to the exclusion of the other types of learning that American education can offer: learning how to interact with one’s. Peers socially, on the playing field, in academic completions such as speech and debate, in student leadership and government. Many Sikh youth have top grades but rank very low in extracurricular activities, a fact which costs them not only in their personal development but also in their academic opportunities, since colleges and graduate schools take such activities strongly into consideration when deciding who to admit and who to reject.
Perhaps more importantly, it is in these outside the classroom activities where lifelong friendships form, networking takes place, and students form ties with their peers and professors that can serve them well into their careers. Thus, Sikh parents should make every effort to encourage their children to participate fully in many different types of extracurricular activities, and not overstress the academic aspects of education.
A final but crucial need on the educational front is the need for scholarship funds. This has not been much of a problem thus far because most parents have been highly educated, high earning professionals willing to sacrifice much of their own income so that their children can be adequately educated. However, as the cost of education continues to skyrocket.
Continued from previous page and the educational and coming level so new Sikh immigrants and Second generation Sikhs declines, we will see more and more Sikh youth for whom college education is not a foregone conclusion.
It is the responsibility of the Sikh community to support the educational goals of such children, because their ultimate success in life reflects upon us as a community. Today a Sikh is judged by an American in the context of other Sikhs the American knows or has heard about, Sikhs who are likely to be successful doctors, scientists, Or entrepreneurs, Let us hope the day never comes when the preponderance of Sikhs against whom We are all judged are not educated professionals but domestic servants, construction workers, or even drug dealers. Organizations like the Association of Sikh Professionals can Prevent this tragic outcome by Setting up scholarship funds based on need and merit for college and Qraduate education, I believe it has already made a start in this direction, but the funds need to be vastly increased if they are to make the difference in a Sikh youth’s choice between going to college and entering the work force with only a high school education. Another important area where Organizations like ASP can help is in career networking, As I mentioned, earlier, most Sikh professionals are today limited to the fields of medicine and engineering, with a few in teaching positions. However, this is changing. There are now, especially in my generation, Sikhs going into areas such ‘as law, business management, journalism, and other professions. As we all know, networking is essential to getting ahead in this society, and perhaps it would be helpful to establish a directory of Sikh professionals who are willing to discuss their careers with young Sikhs interested in their fields, give them some advice, and perhaps €even engage in mentoring later on ‘once the professional education is completed. This might seem like an obvious and natural development, but it is not. Women have typically run into a similar issue: as they climb the ladder of success, younger women often find that older, more established women who have made it still feel somewhat insecure and are not willing to “stick their necks out” and risk their own positions to mentor and advise other women trying to emulate them. I see a similar problem in our own community, with Sikhs in certain fields being not particularly encouraging of others coming in and joining them; they somehow feel that they are uniquely qualified and special and that others who come along might just “ruin the curve” and spoil things for them reputation ally, This attitude is shortsighted, narrow minded, and ultimately contradictory to the Sikh principles of mutual community support that we all supposedly Jearn in our gurudwaras, I hope more Sikh professionals will leave their petty reservations behind them and reach down to give a helping hand to younger Sikhs interested in achieving the Same success that they have, Everything doesn’t have to be done the hard way, and there is no particular virtue to suffering in solitude when there are plenty of untapped human resources around in the form of Sikhs who have already broken ground and paved the way for others to follow, if they only had direction. Although Tam not yet a professional, I have had to learn a lot of things about the legal profession through my college connections, by trial and error, and by sheer ‘Tuck—things like which school to attend, what courses to take, whether to try out for law review, whether to specialize in litigation, which firms to seek interviews from for summer jobs, whether to do a judicial clerkship, which judges were the best ones to clerk for, and so on. I learned none of these things from Sikh lawyers because I don’t know who they are, or if I know who they are I don’t expect them to be particularly helpful. But there is no need for duplication of such efforts in the future, and anyone here who is interested in pursuing a legal career should feel free to contact me with their questions, and I will do all can to help. Perhaps ASP can further such networking by establishing a directory of young Sikhs who ‘are embarking on careers in ‘new areas and who, like me, are willing to ‘help their peers do the Same. Another issue I would like to address is that of maintaining the Sikhism aspect of our personal and professional lives. Clearly, practicing our religion every day and actively participating in our gurudwaras is a key factor in this endeavor, but other efforts are needed as well. One particular shortcoming I see in the development and perpetuation of Sikhism in this country today is the lack of an intellectual or philosophical academic basis for it, and the lack of a Sikh intelligentsia or intellectual Vanguard 16 propound Simply put, we are expected to take everything about our religion at face Value without looking below the surface and questioning, probing the Historical and theological foundations of many of Our beliefs. Yet this rote learning approach causes problems for many in my generation who are more accustomed to learning through questioning, analyzing, researching, and in general demanding rational scientific reasoning in support of the propositions we are asked to accept. I do not suggest that it is proper for such questioning and theoretical exposition to take place in the gurudwaras, which should ideally be centers for the preservation and practice of those who are already Secure in their beliefs. What I Suggest is that we as a community need to support the possibility of Sikh theological, philosophical, and historical study as a career option, and in fact foster the creation of scholars of Sikhism who also happen to be Sikhs. The paradoxical situation we face today is that the most credible Western educated scholars of Sikhism are not Sikhs but members of other faiths. While they have made invaluable contributions to the literature, their perspective cannot match that of a Sikh who sees her efforts not just as sterile intellectual pursuits but also as a means to an end: the furtherance and solidification of her faith and community, This goal is another one that requires both money and dedication. While many Sikhs have begun to recognize the need for endowed study of Sikhism in our major American universities, I believe they have taken the wrong tack in supporting the idea of endowed chairs in Sikhism, for the following reasons, First, such chairs are extremely expensive, starting at about a million dollars forenamed chairata good university, Second, the group donating the money typically has no control over who is appointed to fill the position. Third, the group has no control over the topic, direction, Or content of the research that is undertaken in their name, Found, this approach does nothing in terms of encouraging more Sikhs to undertake the study of Sikhism, It merely gives an academic home to someone, probably a Western scholar, who has already chosen to study Sikhism. Given the nihilistic and leftist trends in academia today generally, chaired professorships in Sikhism are more likely than not to produce scholarship that is destructive to and critical of the theological traditions we seek to support, rather than reinforcing and legitimizing Sikhism. A much better approach, I feel, is to set up fellowship funding for graduate study in Sikhism independent of any particular university. For the price of one endowed chair in Sikhism an organization like ASP could fund five or more fellowships for Sikh graduate students to pursue Ph.D,s in Sikh religion, philosophy, history, anthropology, and political science. The Sikh scholars seeking the grants would submit their grant proposals and topics in advance, so that the donor organization could perform a screening function and partially ensure that its funds will not serve ends detrimental to Sikhism. Moreover, this approach ensures the creation of scholars who are indebted the Sikh community and who will undoubtedly pay back that debt during their careers by nurturing more Sikh scholarship and maintaining lies to the Sikh community, pouring their research back into it for practical use. There are many other topics that call out for our attention, including the perpetuation of Sikhism in practice, the preservation of Puniahi culture. and capitalizing on our considerable potential political leverage as voting, taxpaying American citizens, issues that are integral to the topic of succeeding in Americans Sikhs, but! Will leave those for another day. Let me just conclude by saying that while different generations have different perspectives, it does not follow that because the youth are the focus of our discussion here today it should be their voices that speaks the loudest As I mentioned at the beginning of my remarks, my parents’ insights are different from my own but entirely accurate in their own way, and if the different generations can listen {o each other, then the solutions we come up with will be the richer and more comprehensive because of our toleration and open mindedness.
Article extracted from this publication >> January 22, 1993
